offers to do the books and A. says: ‘What books?’ R. can read and write but his real gift is with numbers. He did the books for his parents from the age of eleven. ‘When they went to market they bought this and sold that. I wrote it down. After six months I could tell them where they were making money and losing it.’ This market was in the next village. ‘Now you know why your parents were shot by the anarchists,’ I say. This had never occurred to him.
13th January 1944
We held off the coast before going into the small fishing village of Salobrena under cover of darkness. A. signals from off shore and, on receiving the right reply, moves in. While we’re waiting A. lets me have a look at his only firearm, a shotgun with engraved silver above the trigger guard. ‘A work of art to kill with,’ I say. I’m only nervous that I have to do this work with just two shots, but he assures me that the shot spread is very discouraging for those on the margins. They go off to do the business and I guard the ship. They come back half an hour later arguing. The buyers would not accept R.’s inflated price. A. is furious that he has to sail to another port and find another buyer. R. tells him to be patient, they will be back to talk to us again. A. paces the deck. R. smokes. At 3 a.m. R. tells A. to start the engines. As R. prepares to cast off four men come running towards us. I patrol the deck with the shotgun. Money changes hands. We unload and leave before dawn.
15th January 1944
R. shows A. that if he’d accepted the price offered at Salobrena he would have broken even and if he’d paid his usual price for diesel he’d have made a loss. R. works on him about the type of cargo he is shipping. It’s too heavy and not profitable enough for a small ship. He says we should be doing cigarettes. ‘Cigarettes are the new money. You buy everything with cigarettes. Francs, Reichsmarks, Lire mean nothing.’ A. whitens at the idea. The Italians are running that show and he doesn’t want to get involved. R. points to me and says: ‘He’s a trained soldier. He was with the Legion. He’s been to Russia. There’s no Italian who could match him.’ R. has done his homework. I didn’t tell him any of that. A. looks at me and I say: ‘I’m not doing it with a shotgun. If you want to run cigarettes we need at least a sub-machine-gun.’ R. laughs at me. ‘One sub-machine-gun!’ he says. ‘That American who sold us the diesel and gasoline … he can get you anything you want. A howitzer, a Sherman tank, a B-17 bomber — although he said that might take a little longer to arrange.’
29th January 1944
The Allies landed in Anzio last week and R. is nervous that his precious market is going to be destroyed by the end of the war. I tell him the Allies still have plenty of work to do and that the Germans will not give up territory easily. R. is desperate to get his own boat already and I point out that we still haven’t earned our first $10, let alone enough money to put down on even a rowing boat. R. insists that A. teach him everything about the boat and the sea — how to read a chart, plot a course, read a compass and navigate by the stars. I sit in on these tutorials as well.
20th February 1944
A. has been having his own way and we’ve been making regular trips with chickpeas, flour and gasoline until R. pulls off a strange deal to run a cargo of black pepper up to Corsica for a very low freight. The shipper is a German who’s come down from Casablanca and bought this cargo from a Jew in the town. I can’t think what the Corsicans want with all this black pepper and, when the German realizes that I speak his language and fought in Russia, he confides in me that they will transship it and it will end up in Germany in a munitions factory.
24th February 1944
We have put into Corsica and R. is delighted to have made contact with both Germans and Corsicans. It now seems that we will be putting into Corsica in the future with cargoes of cigarettes and the Corsicans will have the problem of putting them into Marseilles or Genoa. As he points out to A., we make more money for less risk. A. cannot give him credit for this simple piece of business. He is king because he has the boat and does not realize how important R.’s intelligence is to making his stupid boat work profitably.
I have a conversation with A. about the difference between peasants and fishermen: Fishermen are always humble in the presence of the sea. The sea’s might draws them together. They will always help each other out. Peasants have only their land. It makes them small-minded and possessive. They are never humble, only suspicious. They are taciturn because anything said may give their neighbour an advantage. Their nature is to protect and expand. If a peasant sees his neighbour stumble and fall it fills his mind with possibilities. He finishes with the statement: ‘I am a fisherman and your friend R. is a peasant.’
R. maddens me with his endless dreaming about his own boat.
1st March 1944
We dropped off our cargo with the Corsicans and put into Naples with an empty ship for R. to find an Italian to do business with. He’s learnt from the Corsicans that permission is required. A. won’t go ashore and I realize how much the incident with the Italians shook him up.
12th March 1944
R. was determined to show A. how much money can be made from a well-organized Italian deal. Our boat is filled with Lucky Strikes. We hardly have room to sleep for the cartons and boxes, even loose packets. A. is nervous. All his money is in this one run. We slip into the Gulf of Naples at night and hang in the chill blackness of a very calm sea, waiting. R. comes to me in the cabin where I cradle the sub-machine-gun. He tells me to be ready, to stay out of sight and at the first hint of trouble I am not to question anything but to kill everybody. ‘But I thought we had permission,’ I say. ‘Sometimes you have to prove yourself first to get that permission. Nothing is certain with these people.’ I ask him why he hasn’t told A. that, and he said: ‘All men have to think for themselves. If you leave it to others you ‘re taking a risk.’
I check that all four magazines are full and click one into the breech of the gun. The water slaps against the side of the boat. After some minutes there’s the bubbling of an approaching engine. I put out my cigarette and go up to the wheelhouse and crouch below the cracked panes of glass. I sense that something has changed in R., but the approaching boat is on us before I have time to think this through. A light comes on as it pulls alongside. The old tyre buffers squeak and squeal as the boats kiss together. I hear an Italian voice, singsong and unthreatening. I put an eye over the window ledge. A. and R. are standing at the rail about three metres in front of me. The Italian understands Spanish. Two men slip over the rail aft and make their way round to the dark side of the wheelhouse. I know that this is not right. I hear the two men on the other side of the wall, their clothing brushing against the slats. Is this the first hint of trouble? I hear a shout and don’t think but put a short burst through the wheelhouse wall. I run out and jump the rail into the Italian’s boat. There’s no one on the deck of our boat. I lope around the aft of the Italian ship. The engine suddenly throttles up and I put a short burst in to the wheelhouse, killing two men. I pull the throttle back. The boat idles and drifts away from ours. I listen and check the deck and then go below. The cabin is empty. The door to the hold opens on to a diesel-smelling blackness. I find a torch in the cabin. I put my back to the bulwark and hold the torch out. Nothing. No shot. A boy, no older than seventeen, is huddled in the corner of the hold. I find only a small knife on him. He is shaking with fear. I pull him up on to the deck. The white hull of A.’s boat is still visible in the rippling darkness. A light comes on in the wheelhouse and the engine starts up. R. is at the wheel. The Italian boy is on his knees praying. I tell him to shut up, but he has found his rhythm. R. throws me a line. ‘All dead?’ he asks. I point to the boy at my feet. R. nods and says: ‘It’s better to kill him.’ The boy wails. R., who I now notice is soaking wet, gives me a handgun.
‘I need more of a reason than that to kill him,’ I say.
‘He’s seen everything,’ says R.
‘Maybe it’s time for you to get your hands dirty,’ I say.
